We bet you thought that black roses didn’t really exist and for the most part you would be right. While blue and rainbow roses are created by florists, the story of the black rose is completely different. Black roses aren’t a natural variety that you can purchase from your local nursery; they’re much more elusive than that.

Black roses, called the Turkish Halfeti Rose, Arab Bride or Arab Beauty, bloom in small numbers exclusively in the village of Halfeti, Turkey.

This unique rose is extremely rare and strangely beautiful. It doesn’t bloom in petals of ebony immediately however. The rose blossoms a dark red but this scarlet shade fades to black as the summer progresses.

While the Turkish Halfeti Rose can only be grow in this very specific part of the world, its limited availability wasn’t immediately known until the residents of Halfeti were forced to relocate.

In the 1990s the Birecik Dam was built and by the 2000s it was filled with water. As a result of the newly constructed dam, the residents of Old Halfeti were repositioned about 10 kilometres away in what became known as the “new” Halfeti. The residents took their rose plants with them and replanted them in their new village but quickly realised that something was wrong.

The roses failed to thrive in their new location. While only a short distance from their original home, the soil in Old Halfeti had been fed by the waters of the Euphrates, which has a unique pH level. To prevent the extinction of this unique beauty, district officials collected seeds from the roses and planted them in greenhouses close to Old Halfeti. In doing so, they managed to save the striking rose.

While the rose can be grown in other regions around the world, only in Halfeti does the rose bloom in its black hue; when planted elsewhere, the rose always blooms in deep red.

Unique, intriguing and only found in one part of the world, the Turkish Halfeti Rose is truly one of a kind!